


Isolation

by quirklesswriter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:00:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9658436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quirklesswriter/pseuds/quirklesswriter
Summary: Hermione lives alone in a cottage that is far away. She has not had visitors for months and that is when Draco showed up at her door.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Colubrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colubrina/gifts).



People like to judge Hermione noticed. Rather than accept her desire to fade into obscurity, people tried to drag her up into the limelight. She was told it wasn’t normal for someone to be stuck in the past.  
The last incident Harry intervened telling Hermione to leave her little cottage that she converted to a potion brewery. She had laughed but her response was filled with pain, “Maybe I’ll leave when I remember a part of my childhood unaffected by the war or when the scars on my arm don’t burn.”  
Hermione became comfortable being alone. No one came by anymore. She hadn’t seen Harry since his last visit, when she had broken down and told him why I chosen to stay out here. Ron hadn’t even tried since their breakup. He was happy now though, with a pretty wife who wanted large family, just like him.  
So when a knock came at the door, she jumped. Immediately, she had her wand in hand. She peered out of the peephole and was flabbergasted that Draco Malfoy was the one standing outside her home. When she first moved in, Hermione charmed her door so that hopeful reporters couldn’t be heard. That didn’t stop her from calling out, fully aware that until she actually opened the door she would be unable to hear his response, “I’m going to open the door Malfoy. Try anything funny and I will hex you into next week!”  
When she did open the door, she merely raised an eyebrow and waited for him to explain himself. She had no desire to start any conversation with him. She did however want to know why he suddenly showed up on her doorstep, similar to a lost puppy, after so many years. “I have something you want,” Draco said in his normal smug facade. Draco moped for a second. “Might I come in to share this with you?” he said, falling back on the submissive murmurs taught to him at birth.  
Hermione stepped back from the door and ushered him within. “Well aren’t you a bundle of joy,” she said snarkily as the door slammed shut behind him. “What do you want, Malfoy, and why?” she questioned.  
Draco looked around the small space, refusing to meet her eyes, “I came here to give you a supposed cure for your scars,at least according to an old Black family journal. As to why I came, I would like to make amends.”  
Hermione rolled her eyes. “Amends can’t be made, Malfoy. I’m still forced out here, traumatized by a war I was thrown into when I was still a child. You weren’t in control and suffered exactly as I did, just on the other damn side.” She stepped closer to him, facing him head on. “I’ll take the cure, I suppose but listen to me very closely. You don’t deserve the pain that will follow trying to chase down forgiveness. I suggest you find some corner of the world that doesn’t quite make your demons screamand stay there. Lord knows everyone in our year deserves peace and most of the year below us too,” she ranted looking at him with murky eyes, shining into his soul.  
“I stood there while you were tortured by that woman whose insanity seeped deep into her bones,” he growled.  
She shrugged and whispered, “If you had done anything we’d both be dead and who knows who wins that war, so shut up and show me the damn recipe.”  
He hands it over and goes to leave, but a gentle hand on his shoulder makes him stop and consider doing anything but leave.  
“Stay. At least see if this cure is really a miracle. Maybe it will help fix this guilt you use as a shield,” she ordered.  
“I don’t have to take orders from a bushy haired nobody,” he smirked for a second, reminding her for a second of the Malfoy that she remembered from Hogwarts.  
She smirked right back and said, “Have fun leaving the wards without my assistance as they aren’t tuned to anyone but me.” Her eyes twinkled with the amusement she got from her manipulation.  
Draco looked at her dead in the eye and announced, “I happen to be quite adept at magic”.  
Hermione stared him down and leaned close, barely breathing the words, “There may be a reason you can only second me in all things,” she paused, then added, ”other than flying.”  
As Draco sputtered in outrage, she read over the recipe, then turned on him with eyes blazing. “It this some kind of sick joke?” she commanded.  
Draco immediately sobered, and vehemently shook his head. “No, that’s why I had to come here not just leave the potion on your porch,” he explained.  
Hermione sighed. She shook her head then whispered, “Then you came here for nothing. Molly won the wand when she killed Bellatrix and burned it with the body in anger.”  
Draco looked at her with confusion. “The wand she died with was a backup. You had the wand when you vanished from the manor,” he muttered replaying the memory of that night in his head.  
She looked at him with her eyes wide and whispered, “Is that the wand I’ve been using since the war?”  
Draco bit his lip before answering, “Yes, it appears that way. I’m not surprised the wand worked. You’re just as powerful as she was.”  
She motioned with her hands and they walked to her brewing station. “Good news is that the potion doesn’t take long to make, it’s just complicated,” she announced. She grabbed one of her cauldrons and told him, “There are vials over there, if you don’t mind getting me some of your blood.”  
He reached into his pocket him and retrieved a vial already filled with blood. “It’s actually my mother’s. She thought that purity would help for the potion,” he explained.  
She nodded before asking, “I wasn’t aware she cared about my wellbeing. Draco’s expression was one of surprise and confusion. He murmured, “I thought you knew my mother was the one that ensured the Ministry doesn’t bother you.”  
Hermione cocked her head, considering, “No, I just assumed it was Kingsley or Harry,” she acknowledged.  
Draco laughed. “You wish. Harry is busy leading the resistance and we coaxed Kingsley into agreement to keep them off you.”  
“Why?” Hermione questioned, finishing the preparations and actually starting the potion. She was carefully following the potion’s instructions word for word, well aware that with (removed words) the Blacks one mistake might result in death or worse.  
“Because you were defiant even under torture. You refused to give up when most of the wizarding world did, and you managed to keep Harry Potter alive, even with an army willing and able to use dark magic,” he explained boldly.  
Hermione called to Draco from over her shoulder , “I’m about to cast the spell. You might want to step back.” She raised her wand and began to cast “magical vineit.” Both the potion and Hermione began to glow with a light brighter than Draco had ever seen.  
Once the light dimmed, Hermione poured the potion into a cup and knocked it back, as the potion had an extremely short shelf life Moments after drinking the cure, Hermione’s blood chilled and she glanced down at her arm, which for the first time since that ghastly moment was not in constant pain.  
She cried out in joy, laughing almost hysterically. Hermione spun around, and flung her arms around Draco. She whispered in his ear, “I didn’t survive. I can’t even bring myself to leave this house. This isn’t living. But now maybe I have a chance.”  
Draco stared down at her mass of beautiful curls and told her,” We both know that it would be foolish to think you need to leave to live.”  
Hermione mirrored Draco’s signature smirk to respond with, “and how exactly would I be living?”  
Draco leaned closer towards her, still firmly in her grip. “Let us redeem each other. We don’t need validation from any others. The public cannot scorn us any longer and we can use my family’s money to show people we are still here and can still change the world for the better.”  
She gazed at him, assessing and merely questioned “What makes us better than others? It certainly isn’t your inheritance.”  
Draco answered with a chuckle, “Because I am darkness, you are light, and together we’d have a balance few other can claim. Also, I’m the only one who is capable to stay with you without destroying what’s left of your sanity. You want to change this world and I can help you.”  
Hermione brushed her lips against Draco’s. “Then we shall, I suppose. She laughed, “You did come all this way.”


End file.
